Episode 1208: The Acuña Cometh
Date April 26, 2018 Summary Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about Ronald Acuña’s debut and the Braves’ pivot to position players, the history of Peter Bourjos losing his job, Eric Lauer’s less heralded/distinguished debut, Kazuhisa Makita, the Angels maxing out their mound visits, and the state of Shohei Ohtani hype, follow up on outfield bobbling and baserunner blocking, and then answer listener emails about teams forfeiting, when homers caught up to triples for good, the Aroldis Chapman-Gleyber Torres trade, the value of long plate appearances, adding an extra plate umpire, a consistently inconsistent umpire, bad pitchers with good K:BB ratios, a visiting-team hypothetical, and the deceptive Rockies offense, plus Stat Blasts on two-strike hitting, foul outs, and performance vs. relievers. Topics * Forfeits * Aroldis Chapman Glyber Torres Trade * Home runs v triples * Long plate appearances * Multiple umps * What if games could end whenever * Umpire changing strike zones * K:BB ratios but are bad pitchers * Coors field split? Intro * Joe Walsh, "Welcome to the Club" Outro * Everclear, "One Hit Wonder" Banter * Ronald Acuna major league debut * Eric Lauer debut in Coors field * Kazuhisa Makita * Angels used 6 mound visit * Shohei Ohtani fatigue? * Email follow ups Email Questions * J. Keith in LA (Patreon): Why don't more teams forfeit? If it's a blowout and the only penalty is the loss the team figures to have anyway and the ire of fans (and players who want to add to their individual numbers), wouldn't more stats-minded teams see the benefit of keeping their players fresh for the next game? Essentially activating their own mercy rule? If a team decided to implement this strategy, how many forfeited games before the league would step in? Are there already any rules about forfeiting or would the commissioner have to invoke the "best interest of baseball" clause. Also, who makes the call to forfeit a game? I assume it's the manager, but can he be overruled by an owner phoning down to the umps (or official scorer?) from his shadowy office? Thanks as always, J. Keith Los Angeles * Marco: In 2016 we saw the Cubs' analytics-heavy front office trade Gleyber Torres (and others!) for three months of Aroldis Chapman. This year, the consensus seems to be that even if the Orioles were to trade Machado, the package they would receive would be pretty light. What's with the disconnect here? Machado is about as valuable a player as there is in baseball, and certainly more valuable than a reliever. Similarly, JD Martinez went for an extremely light package last year, despite having the 13th best wRC+ since 2013. Was the trade for Chapman simply a singular event, based on the Cubs' historic losing ways and the fact they were finally favorites to win the World Series? Were the Cubs simply fleeced? I am just having a hard time understanding why a team like the Yankees was able to pry Torres away for Chapman (and Frazier for Miller), but that the consensus seems to be that the Orioles won't get a top prospect for a Machado. * Nathan: I was on BBRef looking for some team data from seasons past and I noticed on the index page for seasons they have listed “Major League Historical Totals” in the top right hand corner https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/ As of my viewing it shows 214,986 games played among other things. I noticed that the home run tally stands at 295,911 and triples are at 132,830. I was surprised these numbers were as close as they were. Obviously we see more home runs now than triples, and the reverse was true 100 years ago. Are you able to pinpoint the exact moment these two numbers were equal to one another? Can we credit a single player for being the person to push the home run mark past the triple mark? If we are going to do this we would have to set parameters, like we only include NL stats from 1876 forward and AL stats from 1901 forward (thus excluding other professional leagues). We only include regular season stats. In this possible and if so what would be your guess as to when these numbers crossed paths? I’ll guess 1945 for no reason at all. * Luke: As I was watching Brandon Belt's 21 pitch AB on Sunday, I had a lot of time to think. Ordinarily, any out a team makes would reduce that team's winning probability. However, the longer an AB goes, the more stress is placed on the opposing pitching staff... so at some point simply making them throw a lot of pitches will counteract the out made. How many pitches would that take? Also, I realize this may depend on game situation (outs are costlier in WPA later in the game), as well as upcoming schedule (an off-day will soften the blow to the opposing pitching staff), so if you like, we can simply consider Belt's situation, with 0 out and a runner on 1st in the top of the 1st inning on April 22 - a getaway day for the Angels as they travel to Houston after the game. So, would, say, a 50 pitch AB in that situation be better for the Giants than the out was for the Angels? * Steve: Was reading a Sawchik chat where somebody posed the question about whether Brandon Belt would be valuable if he had that long 21 pitch at-bat proceeded by an out every time he stepped to the plate. Travis said that it would be valuable. However, my question is different. Let's assume that there was a player that couldn't get a hit, but always fouled off X number of pitches before getting out. How many pitches would X need to equal before he would be intentionally walked in nearly every plate appearance? I figure it would likely be situational, but at what point is the amount of pitches thrown in an at bat more important than the end result of an out? * Vineet: Forget robot umps. Wouldn’t it be more accurate (and more fun) to have two umpires call balls and strikes simultaneously? Basically have the second umpire be facing the batter a few feet away along the first or third base line. This ump would call the height and the ump behind would call inside/outside. They would signal together and if either of them didn’t call a strike then it’s a ball. Similar to how refs work in football for field goals. * Guy: What would baseball be like if the visiting manager had to declare the game to be over at the end of some complete inning? Would they simply call it whenever they had a lead, or would there be other considerations like making sure your players don't get rusty from playing 3 innings half the time? How exhausted would they be willing to let their players get in pursuit of an elusive 18th-inning comeback? What if, in addition, each visiting team had to play exactly 81 times 9 innings over the course of a season? Ties are of course allowed. * David: I've been thinking a lot about umpires' impact on the game, specifically home plate umpires interpreting the strike zone.I enjoy the many "how long would it take to notice X?" questions you've been answering on the podcast, and I'm wondering: How long would it take for players/broadcasters/coaches/the Twitter mob, etc. to notice an umpire calling one half of an inning like the most pitcher-friendly ump in baseball, and the other half like the most hitter-friendly? (Assume that the ump makes no adjustments throughout the game, either out of spite, bias, or incompetence). Could he last all game without ejecting a player or coach from the team getting screwed? How much quicker would people notice if it was the home team in packed stadium that's getting screwed? Finally, assuming the teams are about equal talent-wise, how much does the team that benefits actual improve their chances of winning? Does it jump to 55%? 60%? 75%? * Scott: The Effectively Wild hall of fame... Mike Trout, Rich Hill, Shohei Ohtani and... Bryan Mitchell. Your comments about Mitchell's strikeout-to-walk ratio - and his awful start against the Rockies tonight - got me curious in an EW kind of way. The Padres can't continue to let Mitchell start with a K/BB ratio of less than one, right? But what if the Padres had Mitchell Bryan on their roster? He's thrown five starts this year and has the same awful ERA as the other guy. Except Mitchell Bryan has more strikeouts than innings pitched and has walked nobody on the season. How many starts would a team give a Mitchell Bryan with pristine strikeout-to-walk numbers and a replacement-level ERA before actually replacing him? * Tim: "You just know this team is going to hit" has become a bit of a meme within Rockies Twitter this year, mainly making fun of Rockies TV announcer Drew Goodman (but also virtually every visiting team announcer), who continues to blithely assume Coors will make the Rockies an offensive juggernaut even as the team current is the worst team by wRC+ in the league, following a season where they finished 28th. So my question is: how bad would the Rockies offense have to be, and for how long, before people no longer "knew" the Rockies were a team that always hit? Is there another team that has developed this sort of reputation (from their ballpark or something else) so impervious to evidence? StatBlast * Netting causing a decrease in foul outs? * Foul outs have declined from 2012, 3.2% to this year 2.9%. * Carlos Gomez has a tOPS+ of 79 off relief pitchers in his career, which is 17th worst. * The worst is Pedro Alvarez with a tOPS+ of 63 against relievers. * Best batter after falling behind 0-2 is Mike Trout with a .692 OPS. Notes * Peter Bourjos was squeezed out of a job by Mike Trout and now Ronald Acuna. * Kazuhisa Makita throws too slow for pitch fx to pick up, and although never known as a strikeout guy has 1 k/9 this year. * Ben wanted the Angels to try and do another mound visit just to see what would happen. * Rule 4.15 says the umpire can call for a forfeit. * Home runs per game equals triples per game in 1931. * Ben and Jeff like the multiple umps, even if it was no more accurate it would be fun. * Lucas Giolito has the worst K:BB ratio this year. * In all but 3 seasons the Rockies have lead in runs. Links * https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/effectively-wild-episode-1208-the-acuna-cometh/ Category:Episodes Category:Email Episodes